Handling Community Emergencies
HEALTH EDUCATION - Safety - EXTRA
Safety (5)
HPE Lesson Plans - Health - KHE, 1HE, 2HE, 3HE, 4HE, 5HE
Safety | Mental, Social & Emotional Health | Substance Abuse & Disease Prevention | Growing Up Healthy
L1: School Bus Safety| L2: Preparing for the Unexpected | L3: Practicing Safety & First Aid | L4: Safety & Bicycling | L5: School Bus Safety | L6: Fire Safety | L7: Preventing Violence | L8: Organizations That Protect Public Health | EXTRA: Handling Community Emergencies
Safety
Handling Community Emergencies
See below for the following:
Standard(s), Essential Question(s), Big Idea(s)
LEARNING TARGET / SUCCESS CRITERIA
I will list organizations that help communities prepare for and respond to emergencies.
I will list some causes of forest fires, and explain why some forest fires are allowed to burn.
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PRE-INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITY
Vocabulary
evacuation - the removal of people from their homes to a safer place
OPENING (Engage)
Main Idea
Government groups, volunteer groups, and private citizens work together to handle emergencies.
Why Learn This?
You can use what you learn to explain how to get help or information in case of a flood or fire.
WORK PERIOD (Explore/Explain/Extend/Elaborate)
READ: Handling Community Emergencies
Disasters such as floods and fires destroy property and injure or kill people. Sometimes these disasters strike without warning. But often people have time to prepare for them. Either way, communities need all the help they can get to handle emergencies such as these.
What happens when there is a flood?
When rain falls or snow melts faster than it can be soaked up by soil or carried away by rivers, there is a flood. Streams, lakes, and rivers get so much water pouring into them that they overflow. In rural areas farmers' fields are covered. A whole year's crop of corn or soybeans can be destroyed. In towns houses may fill with water and mud, destroying the personal property in them. Buildings may be washed off their foundations. In both rural areas and towns, floodwater pollutes drinking water.
Some floods can be predicted, giving communities time to prepare. Sometimes in flood situations, people fill bags with sand to help their town prepare for a flood. The sandbags will be stacked high along the riverbanks to hold back rising waters.
If protective barriers such as sandbags do not hold, an evacuation (ih-va-kyuh-WAY-shuhn), the removal of people from their homes to a safer place, may be necessary. The local emergency management director organizes an evacuation. Radio and television stations tell people when to leave, where to go, and which roads to use. Local governments and the Red Cross set up shelters where people can stay.
"The Red Cross got here right after the flood hit us, and I never saw people work so hard in all my life.... They gave us food. They brought in blankets and mattresses. They nursed the sick...." These words were spoken by a survivor of a flood in Pennsylvania. They show some of the things that communities must provide when there is a flood.
If the amount of damage caused by a flood is large enough, state and local governments may ask the President to declare an area to be a disaster area. Then the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) steps in. FEMA sets up a disaster field office near the scene and coordinates its work with state and local officials. Most of the aid FEMA gives is financial. When necessary, however, FEMA can use resources from other agencies of the federal government to do such things as:
restore public services
provide transportation and communication
assist with medical care
ensure that food gets to the disaster area
restore power systems
What happens when there is a fire or an explosion?
Explosions and Fire
There was a fire that broke out in a pipeline carrying natural gas to homes and businesses. The gas was kept at high pressure as it travelled through the pipeline. When a weak spot in the pipe let some of the gas out, it exploded and caught fire. The seven-minute delay between the explosion and the fire allowed residents of nearby apartment buildings to reach safety.
Hundreds of firefighters from nearby communities were on the scene within minutes. While they waited for pipeline employees to turn off the flow of gas, they sprayed neighboring apartment buildings to keep the fire from spreading. Once the flow of gas was stopped, firefighters put out the fire.
Red Cross volunteers set up emergency shelters at the local high school. They set up mobile feeding units and brought in cots and blankets. Some people lost their homes and all of their belongings in the fire. The owner of the pipeline paid for these people to stay in local hotels until they could find permanent places to stay.
After the area had cooled down, volunteers dug through the wreckage to salvage what they could. Local police, the pipeline company, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the cause of the blast. Local restaurants, churches, and schools organized activities to raise money for the people who were affected by the fire.
Explosions from Bombs
Each year bombs endanger hundreds of lives in the United States. Sometimes the bombs explode. More often, trained bomb squad technicians prevent them from going off.
Bomb squads take apart many types of explosive devices. Some are small letter bombs that can injure or kill the people opening them, and some are large bombs in trucks that can kill hundreds. Working with bombs is a very dangerous job. Whenever possible a specialized robot handles the bombs.
Forest Fires
Raging forest fires leap from tree to tree, consuming entire forests and destroying thousands of acres of valuable resources. Forest fires are difficult and sometimes impossible to control.
Although some forest fires are caused by lightning, most are caused by people. Carelessly doused campfires, cigarettes flicked out of car windows, and used matches discarded while still hot are some of the causes of forest fires.
When a forest fire breaks out, firefighters from local communities are the first to respond. They get help from state teams and U.S. Forest Service teams trained specifically to fight forest fires. Working together, these firefighters douse flames with water pumped from tank trucks. They drop water or fire-fighting chemicals from aircraft onto flames. They dig fire lines to remove material from the path of the fire and to keep the fire from spreading. If the fire spreads toward areas where people live, the areas are evacuated, and firefighters bulldoze any buildings that could provide fuel for the fire.
The Forest Service allows some fires to burn. Well-trained forest managers may even start fires. Letting small fires burn gets rid of ground litter that can feed much more damaging fires. Fires also help some animals. Some endangered birds prefer to nest in the open, burned-out areas left after forest fires.
REMEMBER...Government groups, volunteer groups, and private citizens work together to handle emergencies. You can use what you learn to explain how to get help or information in case of a flood or fire.
CLOSING (Evaluate)
Complete Lesson Checkup
Finished Early? (sign into BrainPOP using Clever)
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Watch BrainPOP - Water Safety
Standard(s)
HE5.3a - identify characteristics of valid health information, products, and services
HE5.3b - access resources from home, school, and community that provide valid health information
HE5.3c - assess the characteristics of valid health information, products, and services
HE5.4a - apply effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills to enhance health
HE5.4c - demonstrate how to ask for assistance to enhance personal health and the health of others
HE5.5a - identify health-related situations that might require a thoughtful decision
HE5.5b - list healthy options and possible consequences to a health-related issue or problem
HE5.5c - predict the potential outcomes of each option when making a health-related decision
HE5.5d - analyze when assistance is needed in making a health-related decision
HE5.5e - choose a healthy option when making a decision
HE5.5f - describe the outcomes of a health-related decision
HE5.7a - practice responsible personal health choices
HE5.7b - demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors to preserve or enhance personal health
HE5.7c - model a variety of behaviors that prevent or decrease health risks to self and/or others
Essential Question(s)
What happens when there is a flood?
What happens when there is a fire or explosion?
Big Idea(s)
When rain falls or snow melts faster than it can be soaked up by soil or carried away by rivers, there is a flood. Streams, lakes, and rivers get so much water pouring into them that they overflow. In rural areas farmers' fields are covered. A whole year's crop of corn or soybeans can be destroyed. In towns houses may fill with water and mud, destroying the personal property in them. Buildings may be washed off their foundations. In both rural areas and towns, floodwater pollutes drinking water.
There was a fire that broke out in a pipeline carrying natural gas to homes and businesses. The gas was kept at high pressure as it travelled through the pipeline. When a weak spot in the pipe let some of the gas out, it exploded and caught fire. The seven-minute delay between the explosion and the fire allowed residents of nearby apartment buildings to reach safety.
Hundreds of firefighters from nearby communities were on the scene within minutes. While they waited for pipeline employees to turn off the flow of gas, they sprayed neighboring apartment buildings to keep the fire from spreading. Once the flow of gas was stopped, firefighters put out the fire.
Red Cross volunteers set up emergency shelters at the local high school. They set up mobile feeding units and brought in cots and blankets. Some people lost their homes and all of their belongings in the fire. The owner of the pipeline paid for these people to stay in local hotels until they could find permanent places to stay.
After the area had cooled down, volunteers dug through the wreckage to salvage what they could. Local police, the pipeline company, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the cause of the blast. Local restaurants, churches, and schools organized activities to raise money for the people who were affected by the fire.
RESOURCES / INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
see below
DCSD Board-Approved Instruction Materials
Your Health: Teacher's Edition - Grade 5. Harcourt Brace & Company. 1999.
Technology
Chromebook
large video screens for whole-class viewing
sound system for sharing of audio